Writing here at Morpeth All Saints... 

In all Key Stages a range of genres are taught, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Along with discrete English units, cross-curricular writing opportunities are used as often as possible. Each genre is taught sequentially following a structure which ensures high quality writing as a result of detailed text analysis, clarity of genre features, teaching and application of grammar and punctuation and key vocabulary.

Intent:

At Morpeth All Saints, we recognise that writing is an essential skills and that we must overcome any barriers that prevent children from becoming confident writers. We aim to help our children develop these skills in the following ways:

• Introducing and using a wide variety of model texts, covering a wide range of genres.
• By exposing and introducing higher level vocabulary.
• Giving children opportunities to write for authentic purposes.
• Ensuring children have opportunities to talk about a plan their writing.
• A solid understanding of grammar and ability to use it for effect.
• Giving children the opportunity to evaluate, revise and edit their own work and offer feedback on the work of their peers.
• To be able to spell, not only the prescribed spelling words but also beyond through the teaching of spelling rules.
• Take great pride in their work and its presentation, including their handwriting.

We believe these steps provide children with the building blocks needed to start to become successful writers.

Implementation:

In line with the National Curriculum (2014), we ensure that children in each year group are taught the explicit grammar and spelling objectives required for their key stage.

All children write daily, in an English lesson and across the curriculum. Teachers plan writing based on a variety of units focusing on both fiction and non-fiction texts as a base. Our lessons are enriched with hooks, ‘real life writing’ and exciting reasons to write – such as special visitors, big events or whole school activities.

Spellings:

Spellings are taught according to the rules and words contained in Appendix 1 of the English National Curriculum. Teachers are given weekly spelling lists to learn, based on their learning of that week, then are tested the following week.

Grammar and Punctuation:

Grammar and Punctuation knowledge and skills are taught through English lessons as much as possible. Teachers plan to teach these skills through the purpose of writing that they are teaching, making it more connected to the outcome. Teachers also use flashback fours to consolidate this teaching.

English Lesson Sequence:

Each class have a yearly overview of the writing purposes, both narrative and no-fiction. These have been plan to ensure coverage of the key genres as well as build on skills from year to year. The outcome of each unit is a ‘hot write’ demonstrating the newly learned skills, following a cold write at the start of the unit to show progression.

Handwriting:

We follow the ‘penpals’ handwriting scheme. Handwriting is taught explicitly in lessons and in context when the teacher models the correct letter formation. In Nursery, EYFS and Year 1 children write in a printed style, which is a wonderful starting point until they are ready to progress to a cursive style, most commonly in Year 2

Impact

The impact of our writing curriculum will be shown through:

Summative assessment of grammatical knowledge and spelling using tests – 3 x a year during assessment week.

Teacher assessment of writing using independently written pieces to provide evidence of national curriculum skills and understanding.

Termly moderation of writing between year groups and externally to provide robust judgements.

Termly monitoring to show clear evidence and the use of vocabulary, spelling, grammatical understanding and text type knowledge.

Handwriting...

At Morpeth All Saints we recognise that handwriting is an important skill and children's ability to write fluently for the rest of their lives depends on a good foundation of handwriting from the early years of their education. To ensure each child has a good foundation of handwriting skills we follow the guidance of the National Curriculum, alongside the delivery of The Cambridge University Press PenPals Handwriting Scheme. 

Our aims for teaching handwriting are; 

• All children to develop a well-formed legible style of handwriting with a progression towards a consistent joined style with increasing fluency, confidence and speed. 
• For all children's skills in handwriting to be reflected in their presentation of their work across the curriculum and their joy of writing.